Hide and Seek Bottle

My friend Faye first told me about an “I Spy Bottle” she had seen on the internet and I thought the idea was magical! So, ready for our little trip to Italy, I made Cakie her very own version for the journey.

First I found a small plastic bottle from our recycling bag. Then I got some plain rice.

I put the rice in a sandwich bag.

I squeezed some pink food colouring onto it.

Then held it tightly and gave it a good shake up!

I layed it out on kitchen towel to dry off.

Meanwhile I raided my buttons and tid-bits drawer (I have many secret little drawers and boxes full of these treasures!)

I found an old key, teeny pencils, lady-bird drawing pins, buttons, tiny dice, magnets, mini banana and flower buttons, various fun beads and some coins.

Oh yes and a novelty Father Christmas and mini Chrsitamas tree too!!

I put all the ones that would fit through the neck of the bottle and shook it up!

Then I added some gold glitter to make it more magical!

Voila! Finished.

Every time you turn it, something new appears and everything else seems to be hiding in the rice!

It has been great fun so far. The possibilites for this are endless depending on the age of the child. You couls have a simple identification game eg “can you find the moon?” or “what is this here?” With a slightly older child you could work on positional language eg “what is next to the pencil?…above the dice?….underneath the Christmas Tree?”

Or you could make a themed bottle eg fill it with small, plastic numbers or letters and do a number or letter hunt. It could be filled with items to do with a certain topic eg animals/ food/ transport/ farm etc.

Aren’t these fun? We made rainbow ones at my daughter’s 4th birthday party, and they were the hit of the party! Even the 10yo loved making it, and the 4yo’s kept going back again and again and wanting to make more! If only I’d had more bottles!